CBS' new serialized drama, Jericho, about how one small town in Kansas deals with being cut off from the rest of the world in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, begins Wednesday, September 20th, 8PM ET/PT. This is one of the shows generating early buzz, and I thought I'd give you my impressions. In a nutshell, it combines the emotional shock of The Day After with the isolation of On the Beach with the focus on the family of Testament. Watch the pilot episode and then go watch those post-nuclear films and you'll see what I mean.
The first episode introduces us to Skeet Ulrich's character, 32-year-old Jake Green, who returns to his hometown of Jericho, Kansas to ask his father, the town's Mayor, played by Gerald McRaney, for money that his late-grandfather left him in order to finally make his way in the world. Jake's father, who is running for re-election, is obviously skeptical, and it's apparent that Jake has not done much with his life since leaving home.
Everything seems normal with life in the town, but by the end of the first act, we see a mushroom cloud on the very distant horizon, to the west... perhaps Denver. The immediate effect on the town is that all communications, television, cell-phones, etc. are cut off, and the town struggles to figure out what has happened and what to do.
Whether it was intentional or due to lack of budget, I give credit to the show for not making the mushroom cloud sequence a huge deal... the cloud is more of an ominous sign than a destructive force, and the visual, combined with underplayed music, is quite chilling and may even raise a few hairs on the back of your neck. It's a heck of a "what if?" scenario.
And if that doesn't raise your hairs, the scene with the answering machine surely will. I won't spoil it for you.
As night falls, the town's "elders," led by Mayor Green, strive to keep order and figure out what is going on. We are introduced to the character of Robert Hawkins, an African-American played by Lennie James, who comes from the "big city" and is trying to help while dealing with not-so-subtle racial discrimination in Whitebreadsville, USA.
Again, focusing on the aftermath and not the actual explosion, the two biggest conflicts have to do with two separate bus accidents, one involving a school bus and one involving a prison bus. Of course, Jake comes into his own when he is revived from his own auto accident (a lot of mushroom cloud rubber-neckers on the highway) and is led by the hand to the school bus crash by some of the children.
As chaos in the town begins to ensue, the ever-dependable Gerald McRaney calms everyone down and shows off his mayoral skills by delivering an empassioned speech that returns order to the population, at least for the time being. It's a bit hokey, and he's even called on it by one of the townspeople, but it works.
The initial conflicts are resolved by episodes end, but darn it if they don't hook you to want to find out what happens next week. Overall, it's a good introduction to the show, and it shows a lot of promise. Some of the acting is a little weak, including Skeet Ulrich, the poor man's Johnny Depp. But given some time to develop Jake's character (you can sort of see where they're going biblically with Moses leading the exodus out of Jericho), I think he'll probably do fine. The pilot has the tough job of introducing us to a lot of story, and tries to tie it all up nicely at the same time setting us up for more, and for the most part, it does the job.
The biggest problem with the show (although not as much as NBC's Heroes) is that it tries a little too hard to be like ABC's Lost. Lost is apparently the new CSI this year, where every other new show is a serialized drama with an ensemble cast and sci-fi undertones. I think it will take this show a few episodes to find its footing... it doesn't knock it out of the park like the pilot episodes of Lost and Alias. But the concept is certainly interesting enough, and there's a lot they can do with it.
Interestingly, out of the many serialized dramas starting this season, this one seems important enough to make you want to come back next week... without ending on a cliffhanger.
